In the mid-80s Canada’s Cobra Records reckoned that, as long as you put a wild cover on it, any old metal shite could sell 20,000 copies easily. So they set out to create a bunch of pretend metal acts and whack out some albums. One of these was Piledriver.

Although Piledriver boasted various fictional members (including “Knuckles” Akimbo on guitar and “Former” Lee on drums!) all the backing tracks were written, performed and produced by Leslie Howe with vocals handled by Piledriver himself (real name: Gordon). But by second album Stay Ugly, Leslie was gone and Piledriver was assisted by none other than Virgin Steele’s David DeFeis (writing and producing as “The Lion”) and Edward Pursino (writing and playing guitar as umm… “Bruizer” Bernette).

The Fire God is one of the album’s standout tracks. Leathery speed metal with a blasphemous flavour of Venom. It’s crude enough that it sounds a bit bashed out but it’s not just any old metal shite either. It’s got heart, hooks, harmonies and ripping guitar. It was good enough that Virgin Steele did their own version years later and it’s proof that good music can come out of the the most crass and contrived circumstances.